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The United States led the entire world in reducing CO2 emissions last year while also experiencing solid economic growth, according to a newly released report.  “The United States saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis – a fall of 140 Mt, or 2.9%, to 4.8 Gt,” The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported on Tuesday. “US emissions are now down almost 1 Gt from their peak in the year 2000, the largest absolute decline by any country over that period.”“A 15% reduction in the use of coal for power generation underpinned the decline in overall US emissions...

Video phone interview by trusted MD.

ROUND 6 OF THE '60S TOURNAMENT OF CHART-TOPPERS COMMENCES! Votes due: Sunday, Feb 23 @ 6:00 pm Eastern. The FINAL 4! Even easier! Just 2 pairs of songs! Vote for your favorite of each pair shown. No reply, no vote. No more refusals - there're only 2 pairs, after all. Any ties will be broken with a run-off which will end (hopefully) the following Monday.

Even Michelle Obama struggles to feel good about her body sometimes. In a recent discussion with Oprah Winfrey, the former first lady talked about fighting societal expectations as she gets older. “We are so ridiculous as women,” she told Winfrey at the Brooklyn stop of Oprah's "2020 Vision" tour in partnership with Weight Watchers Reimagined, according to People. “We don’t want to talk about our age, and then we want to act like we should look like we did when we were 20, you know? When, I’m sorry, men you can look any kind of way. And it seems to...

LAS VEGAS — Senator Bernie Sanders is a longtime supporter of “Medicare for all.” “I wrote the damn bill,” he said on a debate stage last summer, and his support for universal health care has helped propel him to the front of the 2020 Democratic field. But in Nevada, where the race heads next, his signature policy is a liability with the largest labor union in the state. And the union has enthusiastic allies in Mr. Sanders’s opponents. On Friday morning, moments after Senator Amy Klobuchar finished a tour of the health care facility run by the culinary workers’ union,...

UK: Large group of Muslims punch, kick and hit 18-year-old with glass bottle FEB 16, 2020 2:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER The West Midlands Police are hunting for the perpetrators. Yes, the same West Midlands Police that arrested a man for ripping up pages of the Qur’an at a soccer match. The same West Midlands Police who issued groveling apologies for installing surveillance cameras in Muslim areas, and removed them (maybe if they had still been in place, these guys would have been caught by now). “Appeal after man assaulted and robbed in Birmingham,” West Midlands Police, February 11, 2020:...

With their center’s collapse, Democrats’ only hope of reconstituting it is by redefining the center. As the Democratic primary race moves leftward, the definitions of their candidates are moving right. It resembles a play in which we are expected to accept that the same actors have become different characters simply because of a costume change. When the 2020 Democratic field was taking shape a year ago, its spread was straightforward. Former Vice President Joe Biden was the establishment anchor, in a center-left, front-runner position. A couple of candidates were to his right – Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and former Rep....

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — It’s possible to get infected by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) a second time, according to doctors on the frontline in China’s city of Wuhan, leading to death from heart failure in some cases. The claim is made by doctors working in the Hubei Province capital that is at the center of the epidemic, which has to date infected 64,201 people and killed 1,487. Both the relative and doctors asked to remain anonymous, out of consideration they might face retribution from the Chinese authorities.

Whether we can use the results as legitimate or not, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries showed one thing — progressive policies articulated by former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg are currently resonating with Democratic voters. But while he has surged in popularity over longtime Democrat party players, how would his policies play out nationally? Buttigieg has roughly outlined numerous platform policies, but the roughest right now is his health care plan: “Medicare for All Who Want It.” This idea is to offer a public option that will compete in the health care insurance market against employee sponsored...

Washington (AFP) – A senior US health official said Sunday that more than 40 Americans on a quarantined cruise ship in Japan have been infected with the deadly coronavirus. “Forty of them have gotten infected,” Anthony Fauci, a senior official at the National Insitutes for Health said on CBS’ Face the Nation show. (snip)

Continuation of previous thread.

[Catholic Caucus] The Church of Dialogue humiliates Cardinal Burke: Mass behind closed doors Behold the Church of bridges and mercy, open and outreaching! Cardinal Burke is forced to annul  a Mass in Ostuni: the parish priest had demanded the celebration be held behind closed doors as his arrival in Brindisi displeased the high levels of the diocese.  The newspapers attacked him as an enemy of the Pope. The Bishop of Ostuni however, will tomorrow meet with the Valdese in church to talk about immigration.  Here we see the Church of mercy, the Church of open ports and the Church of...

Over a quarter of a sample of HIV-positive gay and bisexual men in a relationship with an HIV-negative partner did not have an accurate understanding of their current viral load, investigators from the United States report in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. Laboratory viral load results showed that a fifth of men who believed that they were undetectable currently had a detectable viral load, and that 7.5% were virally suppressed when they thought their viral load was detectable. Perhaps significantly, the participants were initially recruited to take part in an adherence intervention and 48%...

Old film of Paris, France taken by Burton Holmes in 1927 (maybe earlier). Set to a natural rate and added in sound for ambiance.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi can't stop talking about impeachment, which is weird because the president was acquitted earlier this month on the two articles that House Democrats managed to drum up against him. The Speaker wants everyone to believe the president is damaged goods and Trump will now remain "impeached forever." But Doug Collins isn't having it. The Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee told Fox and Friends on Sunday that what Speaker Pelosi keeps saying in interviews simply is "not true," and he encouraged Pelosi to "get over the disaster" that her and her fellow Democrats put the country...

Friends it's Sunday night again and time to relax. Warm up the tubes for another 4 hours of classic radio Americana. Listen Live Info *tonight's show will be available at the "Info" link starting tomorrow.

Michael Bloomberg has spent more than double his nearest Democratic presidential primary rival on campaign ads. Data from political ad tracker Kantar/CMAG shows the former New York City mayor spent roughly $417.7 million as of Sunday morning, which according to CNN's David Wright, also includes futures reservations. The amount is 10 times as much as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who leads the delegate race in the contest, have each spent. Here's a look at ad spending through today (including future reservations: Bloomberg: $417.7 million Steyer: $193.6 million Sanders: $41.8 million Buttigieg: $40...

WASHINGTON - House Democrats are grappling with whether to pursue further investigations of President Trump following his acquittal in the Senate, facing both an election in nine months and fresh White House actions that they say demand scrutiny. Democrats want to look into whether the president improperly influenced the Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation for a Trump confidant, casting Mr. Trump as emboldened by the end of the impeachment process. At the same time, party leaders are eager to focus on pocketbook issues for voters, such as health care, and Democrats are wary of launching another drawn-out fight with the White...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Donald Stratton, a Colorado Springs resident who survived the 1941 attack on the USS Arizona battleship at Pearl Harbor, died on Saturday at 97. Stratton’s death was announced on his public Facebook page. ” One of Donald’s final wishes was that people remember Pearl Harbor and the men aboard the USS Arizona,” the post reads. Stratton advocated to award the Bronze Star Medal posthumously to Joe George, who saved six sailors on the doomed battleship.

Schedule of Democratic Party presidential primary debates in 2019 and 2020. These debates are between all the major Democratic candidates running for President in 2020. The Democratic debate schedule below will include all details such as start times, moderators, candidates, live stream links, and links to the full debate videos. This page will be updated frequently as soon as new information becomes available. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has officially sanctioned the twelve debates listed below.